Follow Your Passions

For several years, I made New Years Resolutions. In fact, my tradition until two years ago was to make twelve New Years Resolutions, a number chosen partially as symbolic of the twelve months of the year but also a number that meant I probably had a shot of achieving at least a couple of them!

I started a series of exercises, somewhat by accident, a couple of years ago that approach assisting me in identifying, defining, and achieving my goals in life in a different way. Now that I approach the first New Year’s Day following the instatement of this new method, I am realizing that New Years Resolutions would not only be somewhat redundant to make, they might also be somewhat detrimental to the process.

I should put the disclaimer in, before we get too far, that I am married. Some of the methodology I have used has marriage, or at least being part of a couple, as a filter. I am confident that there is equal value for singles in the process I have gone through, but there may have to be some adjustment, “tweaking”, in parts to make it fit well for your life if you are reading this and are single. I will try to make suggestions, when applicable, to help that process.

The three main parts to my process are listed below. In the coming days, I will discuss each of them in detail.

Step One: Paint the Big Picture
Step Two: Increase Self Awareness
Step Three: Life is a Beach

I’m going to stop there for today, but I want to say one last thing about New Years Resolutions in general. As you will see in the exercises over the next few days, one of the big take-aways I am trying to suggest is that it is somewhat dangerous to tie resolutions down to just New Years. In fact, it is dangerous to tie goals and resolutions down too much to anything. You want goals to be simultaneously quantifiable and flexible, to give to drive and direction while recognizing that life is always changing and what it important one year may have a totally different level of importance the next, relative to other things in life.

The classic holiday crooner Jon Bon Jovi once suggested that he wished every day could be like Christmas. I have heard people from outside of New Jersey also express a similar notion.

I presume these people aren’t referring to songs about George Michael giving his heart to someone the previous Christmas who proceeded to throw it away. Nor do I suspect they yearn to clash eternally with a thousand soccer moms in the toy aisles while trying to make their way back to the electronics department at Target.

No, I imagine people wanting every day to be like Christmas comes down to some combination of the following:

* receiving kind gifts from people who care about you
* giving gifts to those we appreciate
* sending cards out to people we haven’t communicated with as often as we’d like
* celebrating the birth of Christ (if that’s what you’re in to)
* volunteering or collecting food for the hungry, or giving toys to kids who can’t afford them, etc. – charitable works
* forgiving others (and if need be, yourself)
* spending quality time with family and friends sharing meals, playing games, etc.

I guess my point of all this is… there’s really no reason any of these things should be limited to one day a year.

So enjoy your Christmas, one and all. And have a Merry January 17th too, just for the heck of it.

I thought it was about time I defined the mission of this blog more clearly.

The Follow Your Passions blog is my attempt to spur people into doing what they love and loving what they do. It’s about owning whatever you’re doing with your life and making the most of it. It’s about becoming a leader in the communities you are a part of, however you define those communities for yourself.

Leadership. Mentoring. Giving. Enriching our own lives and the lives of those around us through our choices, our words, and our actions. Living happy, satisfied lives as productive, contributing human beings in the time we’re given to be with one another.

Each month, I’ll be collecting contributions from anyone who wishes to participate, and donating them to an organization that embodies the spirit of following your passions. For January, the target organization is National Public Radio, which you can contribute as little as $2 to or as much as you feel like via the ChipIn widget over in the sidebar - credit card, PayPal, however you prefer. If NPR doesn’t align well enough with your interests to give, stay tuned and I’m sure one month I’ll pick an organization closer to your heart we can work together to do some good for.

As you may have seen in the news recently, Time Magazine has named “You” as the Person of the Year. 

“But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It’s not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.”

I could not have asked for a better summary of what my experience at the Social Media Club Phoenix meeting last week was like.  The primary objective of the club is to continually explore the ways in which new internet technologies, particularly those wrapped up into the “Web 2.0” label, are changing the way we can connect, interact, influence, and inform one another.

If you are in the Phoenix area, or one of the cities where the Social Media Club is meeting, I highly encourage you to attend an event.  Even if you’re not near a meeting though, check out their website and do some research on what is going on in the internet world.  Reality is changing in really interesting ways, and understanding them can be a powerful asset.

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
- Sydney Harris

You know that part on a roller coaster, when you get to the top of the first big hill and you look down, and realize what is ahead of you is going to be fast and furious, fun and exhilirating, and there’s not much you can do about it at that point?

That was me about two weeks ago.  I have been whooshing along for several days now, and it will probably be next week sometime before the ride levels out a bit. So take my temporary silence on the blog lately for what it is - a temporary status while visions of paid time off dance in my head (and become reality next Friday).

“There’s no doubt or worry - it just absolutely feels like the right thing to do.”
- a friend and former colleague

I used to work for a really terrific manager at one of my former employers. She consistently encouraged me, never held back on expressing the potential she thought I had, and always created opportunities to succeed and learn even when her plate was overflowing with work of her own. When I moved on, I made sure to let her know how much I appreciated her as a mentor and a friend, and I remember wanting to do something for her because she seemed… well, perhaps not defeated, but certainly not like what she was doing was in line with her passions.

On Sunday I was at a holiday party one of my old coworkers invited me to, and my old manager showed up. Without getting into details, she shared with me that she was moving on to a new opportunity, and that it was far more in line with what she wanted to do. My wife, who had only briefly met this person a couple of years ago, told her “You look like you’re glowing, like you’re really happy.” And I thought about the last time I had seen this mentor compared to how she radiated at the party, and it was… inspiring. Seeing others follow their passions in life is wonderful anytime, but seeing someone I have built a relationship with heading off on an exciting adventure filled with potential like that brings a smile to my face every time I think about it.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
- Albert Einstein

Something is often only a problem when you perceive it to be so. Thus, the solution to many problems is not to fret about them or work hard at them. The solution is to stop focusing on them. If you transcend your problem, and get into a peaceful place inside yourself about it instead, two things will occur; you’ll find out if it was a real problem at all, and if it was a problem that needs to be solved, you’ll find much better answers with a calm, clear frame of mind.

Once you’ve eliminated the excess and are left with things that are actual items you wish to solve, the next step is to stop thinking of them using the word “problem”, along with all of the negative connotations that come from thinking of something that way. I’ve spoken before about recognizing opportunities as they come along in your life, and here’s a great tip for an easy way to spot them - look for what most people see as problems! Bad problems and terrific growth opportunities are frequently two sides of the same coin.

There is tremendous strength in beginning to see the world for all of the opportunities it has to offer. There is potential virtually everywhere, surrounding you. It’s waiting for you to harness it.

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
- Homer

“When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‘Did you sleep good?’ I said ‘No, I made a few mistakes.’”
- Steven Wright

It’s very late and I have not begun formally writing Friday’s post yet. So this will be brief, because I have many hours to fill with fun, life-enriching activities, and some of them will occur rather early.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine today about the universe and how to fix it. Or really, rather, that it is our perception and perhaps not reality that it is “broken” at all. I believe, you see, that our perception defines our reality. As a Christian, I am sometimes asked what proof I have that my beliefs are true. The best answer I have is, it’s called a “faith” because that’s what you have to have to truly believe in something you can’t physically hand someone or show them. I look at the same evidence around me as everyone else, and I perceive a completely different reality about what makes sense as a base of my spirituality.

Have you ever just “known” something was going to happen, and then it did? When I was going through all of my interviews in my senior year of college, I “knew” which job I’d end up with. Before we ever actually began formally dating, I “knew” that I was going to marry the woman that became my wife. Did a series of my choices, conscious or not, lead to those outcomes in some sort of self-fulfilled prophecy? Did my conviction and absolute certainty in my heart about these things lead me to influence others into believing there is no other possible outcome? I can’t answer those questions with any certainty, but I can say that my best guess is that I had gone through enough deep self-evaluation to know how to recognize the best fit for me in each situation when I came across it, and from there the fact that I kept perceiving my reality to be that getting my top job pick and marrying my wife were foregone conclusions at least probably didn’t hurt the eventual outcomes.

Your mind has the potential to be incredibly powerful, regardless of how you choose to use it. Wielded wisely, it can be an incredibly potent tool for good.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments”
- Jim Rohn

I used to be a sales person for a major clothing retailer back in the nineties. Before I ever took a job there, I was a big fan of their products, and in fact I chose them because I thought I could do a good job selling something I believed so much in. When I began with them, I wasn’t making much more than minimum wage, but I loved my job and my living expenses weren’t too high at that point in my life.

I stood in the front of the store and greeted every customer. I wanted to sell to them, but I wanted to do it in a non-invasive way. I knew that if I could show them why I was so passionate about the way the company treated the customers, and set up its policies around making sure the customer is happy with the quality and value of their purchases, I could have those customers coming back again and again. And I was successful, always finding new ways to communicate with everyone I came in contact with, quickly becoming the top salesperson in the store for several months.

Then a major shift in management and direction took place, both at a high level and locally to my store as well. Without going into details, things rapidly soured and I felt like I could no longer support the customers like I used to, or sell our products to them with the same confidence that they’d have a great experience with them. I began to just go about my daily tasks, doing what was expected and asked but nothing more. I lost my top sales person status, and just remained average. There was nothing wrong with the way I performed - I did what I needed to do to keep things moving and keep my managers satisfied, but it was just going through the motions to earn a paycheck. Eventually, I left, dissatisfied with working in a place I felt that way about.

When I was passionate about my work, I accomplished. When I lost the passion, I was only doing activity. If you’re a sales person and you just say “can I help you”, that customer is going to just shut you down with a “no thanks, just looking”. If you instead introduce yourself, build a relationship, explain how your product can improve their lives, and be genuine and passionate about it, you’ll accomplish great things.

The same translates to all activities. Managers can make sure their people go through the motions and get their work done, but it is leaders that encourage the people they work with have all the tools and opportunities they need to innovate, to feel empowered, and to not be afraid to ask questions that might lead to improvements or opportunities.  We often get so caught up in other things, that the most innocent, inexperienced eyes can see important things we may be missing.

So at the end of the day, I would ask yourself if you have spend your time working towards activities, or working towards accomplishments?  What have you added value to today?  What will you differently tomorrow?

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
- Immanuel Kant

“When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers.”
- Colleen C Barrett

Intelligence is knowing it is raining outside. Wisdom is coming in from the rain.

Without possessing the wisdom to do something with knowledge, it really matters very little how much information an individual accumulates. Have you ever known people who could soak up information like a sponge, ace every exam in school they took, but seemed to have so little common sense it was almost pitiable?

In a sense, ideas are like knowledge. Without actions to implement the ideas, there is very limited value to the ideas. I have known for some time that I am an “idea man”. Every day that passes, I get better at seeing the possibilities in something, I see opportunities when they present themselves rather than walk by them blissfully unaware. And even though I have changed significantly in my ability to take action on the ideas, it is still extremely frustrating sometimes to have all these unimplemented ideas inside my skull.

I say that I have changed as far as my will and ability to take action is concerned. At first, I would simply be too lazy to go about trying to get much done with them. I’d have them, then I’d put a plan in place to play a bunch of video games with friends, and leave the idea cold and alone, desperate for a nice cozy scarf or something. Then I got up the gumption to actually take a stab at implementing the ideas, but I wouldn’t have any real order or foresight about how to properly go about it. It would come out half-baked, I’d get frustrated and bored with it, and I’d move on. Finally, I reach the current stage in my life, where I have a pretty high success rate of implementing ideas, but I’m always tempted to take on too much at once, and I either burn out or some of the balls I’m juggling get dropped and fall through the cracks.

So I’m in the process of scaling back my life, and trying to be very aware of my limitations. I’ve learned to just say no, and I’m focusing on just the things I feel the most passionate about, where I can do the most good with the particular strengths I possess. But that doesn’t mean I stop having all these other ideas come my way. I just don’t have the time to take them anywhere near an implementation stage at this particular point in my life.

Stay tuned in the months ahead for tools to help you manage your ideas, take them into action, and recognize what your limits are and when you’ve exceeded them.